S/O Late again...why wait???

[oceanus]

What's also annoying is when the late person arrives people have to listen to a distribe about why.......the traffic, my sitter, the rain, mixup in directions/routes, couldn't find shoes, spilled (whatever) and had to change clothes, etc.
Spare us.   

I know things happen; I've had them happen myself.
But with the chronically late there seems to be a list of flimsy excuses.

"(smiling) I guess I just procrastinate too much".  Yeah.  So we're leaving without you.

[MrTango]

I don't know if anyone alse has had this reaction, but I find it interesting how, when confronted (or when the late person catches up with the others) they turn the tables:
"YOU are being unreasonable. 
When things don't go YOUR way YOU get an attitude.
Well, excuuuuuse me for having a hectic life.  Guess I'm supposed to ignore my kids to accommodate YOU."

Yeah.  Riiiiiight.   

Whenever someone tries to do this to me (turning their own lateness around and making the consequences my fault), I tell them directly "okay, from now on, I know you cannot be relied upon to be on time" and I stop inviting them to anything where timeliness is important.

[siamesecat2965]

I once had two co-workers- Heather and Marie. Marie's car was in the shop for the week and she asked Heather for a ride to work. On Monday morning, she was ready to go when Heather pulled in her driveway. On Tuesday morning, she signaled for Heather to wait and took a few minutes, causing Heather to clock in 10 minutes late. Heather told Marie that she couldn't be late again. On Wednesday morning, when Heather pulled up to Marie's house and Marie waved for her to wait out the window, Heather left immediately. It was mighty frosty at work that day when Marie  stomped in over an hour late for her shift, but you can believe that she was on time for her ride the last 2 days of the week.

This happened to a couple of my co-workers. One of my managers has absolutely no sense of time whatsoever. She's one of those who just arrives whenever, even to work! And forget about closing with her. We all dread and hate it. The way its supposed to work is the manager is the only one who can close the registers. so the rest of us will work on putting the store back together, while they do that, then the closing of the store, getting the deposit together etc.

our store closes at 9, and since we got 'caught" closing registers early when it was slow, they can't start until 9, when we actually close.  If there are no customers, it usually takes the manager half an hour or less to do all that. but not this one. she will putter about, and go from here to there, starting projects late so when 9 comes, she's not ready to close any registers. and she will use the excuse of late customers as to why she's there until 10 or later. when in reality, if there is one customer left when we close, (we are not allowed to kick them out) you can do all the other registers, and save the last one, then do the paperwork, and be done in like 20 minutes.

She also lives further out than the second manager, and was getting a ride to second managers house, and second manager would drive her to work with her. i don't remember why, but she was an hour late. second manager was livid, and said never again. and i don't blame her since they were both late that day.

 

[gramma dishes]

...   However, my ability to be on time now is hampered by my autistic child. Meltdowns happen.

And that's something else that can usually be accommodated.  People get that.

[Amara]

I don't have a strong spine in all situations but for this it is absolutely rigid. I am always on time, almost always to the minute. Thankfully, my family tends to run on time too. At the same time, I am easygoing when someone who is normally on time runs late. Child issues? Traffic? Other reasons? I'm fine. I understand lateness occasionally, and will do what I can to help out. Including waiting a generous amount of time. But anyone chronically late, especially if they always come laden with some minor excuse or worse blame for me, is pretty much shoved out of my life fast. I don't tolerate the level of disrespect that this behavior shows.

In the other discussion, I mentioned my friend* who was constantly late when we set the time to leave for the book festival. I tried to discern why and asked her once when we were relaxing at lunch months ahead of time. She said she needed to make sure of what outfits she wanted to take, choose the jewelry to go with them and so on. I asked her why she couldn't make those decisions ahead of time, even the night before. She claimed she just couldn't, that she had to wait until the last half-hour before she left (and it took her at least one hour to get her stuff together). We "argued" (gently) back and forth, but what struck me most was her insistent determination that no, she couldn't start earlier, she had to wait to make her decisions though she couldn't explain exactly why. It was just the way she was, according to her.

Well, it wasn't acceptable to me, the driver, so later that year that I set my decision down: Be in the driveway waiting at 12:55 pm so I could put her luggage in the trunk and we could leave at 1:00 precisely. She wasn't, but I did. No anger, no yelling. I had a very pleasant drive to the hotel before enjoying my walk over the fairgrounds.



*F_____ was the kind of woman who had been treated as a cute "ingenue" by her husband all her life. They'd met when she was 19 and she never got out of the mindset that she was still that little girl who should be catered to. Though she was a great person otherwise, she still held the belief that she was that tiny girl in curls who charmed everyone by fulfilling their ingenue expectations.

[shygirl]

Amara, how did your friend react?  Was she on time for events after that happened?

[Hawkwatcher]

What's also annoying is when the late person arrives people have to listen to a distribe about why.......the traffic, my sitter, the rain, mixup in directions/routes, couldn't find shoes, spilled (whatever) and had to change clothes, etc.
Spare us.   

I know things happen; I've had them happen myself.
But with the chronically late there seems to be a list of flimsy excuses.

"(smiling) I guess I just procrastinate too much".  Yeah.  So we're leaving without you.

I stopped doing things with an acquaintance after this person gave "(giggling) I was daydreaming" as an excuse for lateness.  I am not a stickler for punctuality but I wish some people would at least put some effort into not wasting everyone's time.

[Amara]

Sad to say, Shygirl, she didn't learn. She got angry at me--it was all my fault, dontcha ya know?--and stayed angry most of the weekend. And she never changed.

Interesting, it was just about a year later when things got bad enough that I broke up the friendship. There were two incidents that meshed together to create the "final" kick I needed to toss her overboard. Though neither was a time issue they were special snowflake issues that highlighted the fact that it was ALL about her.

[Luci45]

*F_____ was the kind of woman who had been treated as a cute "ingenue" by her husband all her life. They'd met when she was 19 and she never got out of the mindset that she was still that little girl who should be catered to. Though she was a great person otherwise, she still held the belief that she was that tiny girl in curls who charmed everyone by fulfilling their ingenue expectations.

Please excuse me for being judgemental. By 10 years (mom dying of cancer), I knew when I had to get up to do whatever. Add makeup to the list by high school - I still never missed the bus or meeting my friends to walk to school. I never missed a morning class in college. (And back then we wore real clothes and did our hair.)

Even people who have no concept of time can know: 5 mins to restroom. 10 minutes for makeup. 10 minutes for hair. 5 minutes to dress and put on jewelry. 10 to get my act together, gather books and purse. Stand and think. 10 minutes to walk to class. Get up 1  1/2 hours before class for a cushion! What's the big deal?

OK. Some people just can't. Sigh.

[NyaChan]

That's what bugs me a lot - I very rarely can accurately predict how long it takes me to get ready.  Sometimes I'm good to go in 30 minutes, other times I need every minute of 2 hours.  Since I know I am bad at planning how long it take, I always give myself way more time than I need because I figure it is better for me to have an extra 20 minutes or so to spend flipping channels before I leave than to have a friend sitting somewhere for 20 minutes wondering when I'm going to show up.

[Luci45]

That's what bugs me a lot - I very rarely can accurately predict how long it takes me to get ready.  Sometimes I'm good to go in 30 minutes, other times I need every minute of 2 hours.  Since I know I am bad at planning how long it take, I always give myself way more time than I need because I figure it is better for me to have an extra 20 minutes or so to spend flipping channels before I leave than to have a friend sitting somewhere for 20 minutes wondering when I'm going to show up.

You are my new hero!

Would you please write my BIL to explain your strategy?

[m2kbug]

I don't know if anyone alse has had this reaction, but I find it interesting how, when confronted (or when the late person catches up with the others) they turn the tables:
"YOU are being unreasonable. 
When things don't go YOUR way YOU get an attitude.
Well, excuuuuuse me for having a hectic life.  Guess I'm supposed to ignore my kids to accommodate YOU."

Yeah.  Riiiiiight.   

I got 101 excuses on a completely unrelated topic, but I didn't buy into any single one of them.  This was not a friend, though, so it made it easier not to be empathetic.  Basically the person was expecting me to cater to her hardships in life and, therefore, I was expected to make my own life miserable to accommodate hers.  Nope.  Sorry.  I can be patient and put up with a lot of things, but this thing is not the one.  Add to that, I had been very patient with their circumstances for several months leading up to this excuse-fest, so I was pretty much done with the whole ordeal.  These types of excuses are are selfish.

[StarFaerie]

That's what bugs me a lot - I very rarely can accurately predict how long it takes me to get ready.  Sometimes I'm good to go in 30 minutes, other times I need every minute of 2 hours.  Since I know I am bad at planning how long it take, I always give myself way more time than I need because I figure it is better for me to have an extra 20 minutes or so to spend flipping channels before I leave than to have a friend sitting somewhere for 20 minutes wondering when I'm going to show up.

I'm much the same. I have very little sense of time passing and hence no idea how long things take and no idea how much to leave for them or how much they are taking. So I always arrange to be early, sometimes hours early depending on the variables. And I have a book in my car so I can use up any extra time. Better that than inconvenience someone else.

[RooRoo]

I, too, am one of those with no sense of time passing. But modern technology is my friend!

My cell phone has 3 alarm clocks in it. Our house phone is also a cell, so there are 3 more alarms. So I set one for 15 minutes* before I have to leave (and I pick departure time based on bad traffic). I bring a book in case I'm early.

One thing I've learned is that, when I'm extra early to medical appointments, I'm often seen early.

I haven't been late to anything important in quite a while. And meeting a friend is on my "important" list. (I would have killed to see the Tut exhibits!)

Now if I could just find a timer that I can set for up to 24 hours...

*That's how long it takes me to get out of the house when I'm disorganized. If I'm organized, I leave as soon as I'm ready - because if I don't, I'll lose track of time, and wind up late.

[Minmom3]

Back when DH and I first started dating, Mom and I were invited to the wedding of an old family friend.  There was limited parking, and we were requested to car pool.  Mom asked to ride with us.  We said yes, sure, but you have to be on time, and we're leaving by X:15.  We will not wait.  Mom was chronically late, for what ever stupid reason, or no reason given.  You were privileged to provide her with a ride.  X:16 rolled around, and we got in the car and drove off.  Mom arrived at the wedding, got in our pew and proceeded to read me the riot act then and there.  We looked at her, told her we waited until X:16 and she wasn't there, so AS AGREED, we left.  She denied being late, got red faced with fury...  Mind you, we had wanted to leave our meeting spot by X:00, not X:15, but knew that Mom would be late, and that we could still get there on time leaving a bit late.  We were fine, but had to park much further down the road than I wanted to walk in spindly high heals.  Mom pulled more manipulation at the end of the reception, and we never gave her another ride someplace unless we were flat out attending the event with her. 

Mom still doesn't much like DH, and is slightly afraid of him, as I had never stood up to her like that until he and I started dating.  That was the end of her ruling the roost, and it grated mightily.  MUCH drama ensued over the years when we refused to cater to her demands.  Heh. One time she quit talking to me for 6 months because I refused to spend 6 hours driving her somewhere and back on Christmas Day!!!